The Queens Ledger / Brooklyn Star Weekly Community News Group helps companies and organizations use social media to engage with their customers, prospects, and partners in ways that have never before been possible. We do this by building online communities within our 8 web sites while using our traditional newspapers as a driving local news source. The new type of ‘communities’ are important to business all over the borough.

*The NEW definition of “A community”*

The ‘community’ of today is a ‘community of interest,’ not merely a community of geographic proportions. An online community might be a community of stamp collectors, kite flyers, kids and adults who are members of a sports league, a group of people who are passionate about a town they grew up in,see click here. , a community of people who take the train to work, movie goers, dog owners, civic activists or students enrolled in a particular school. They are active, have a need to communicate with each other and have a need and desire for others in their geographic community to know about them.

*STOP AND THINK….*

Do you see how you fit into this picture frame we are creating?

Can you imagine how many organizations who have members, customers, teammates or business associates who need to be part of a web world like this?

*What does this have to do with business and the business of ‘Marketing’?*

It's called Social Media Marketing, and it is making a profound impact on marketing strategies for organizations AND businesses of all forms and sizes.

Social Media Marketing at a local level – with a local news generating organization like ours (135 years of local news coverage) gives you the best chance to attract customers. Our ‘local information web sites’ are full of local news, video, events, classified ads, blogs and more. Marketing through our news web sites augments, enhances, and in some companies, replaces “old” forms of marketing. It is radically different from traditional forms of marketing in a few fundamental and dramatic ways. Hundreds … even thousands of people AND businesses generate information on our sites. They are involved in the news and information because they put it there.

* Brand marketing. This type of marketing is “softer” and seeks to create an image or reputation for the company in the mind of the customer: advertising, public relations, analyst relations, sponsorships, logos, tag lines, etc.

Both of these types of marketing are characterized by a few common attributes:

* They are one- way, push-oriented and interrupt-driven. These activities are from the company to the prospect. The prospect doesn't ask for them. They are "pushed" onto the buyer, interrupting them from whatever they're doing.

* They are brand-generated. The content comes entirely from the brand to the customer.

Social Media Marketing – Web 2.0

Social Media Marketing is defined by a new set of characteristics:

* It's a multi-way dialog. Brands talk to customers, customers talk to brands, and - perhaps most importantly - customers talk to each other. This is a new type of engagement that was never possible until the arrival of Web 2.0. It’s NOW. It’s the FUTURE. Get used to it.

It Is Participatory

* It's participatory. Social media marketing depends on user participation - that's what makes it social. To truly be Social Media Marketing, your users must participate.

* It's user-generated. Most of the content and connections in an online community are created by the users - not by the brand.

We have FREE Classified ads, blogs, featured bloggers, business bloggers, a list of 45,000 searchable businesses on our site, event calendars, users who communicate with their own community and much, much more. There will certainly be content and conversations that are brand-generated, but they will be the minority. The goal is to get your users to talk.

The Queens Ledger / Brooklyn Star Community Weekly Newspaper Media Group enables Social Media Marketing by building on-line communities that combine four key areas of capability:

* Profiles. Most of the content and connections in an online community are created by the users - not by the brand. The overall goal of our company is to bring in new users by offering them a way to communicate with people in their own in-common focus. We get our users to talk.

* Enterprise security and control. The users create most of the content and connections in an online community.

Why Now and Not Before?

The new web 2.0 Internet technology, which we use as an engine for our sites, uses social media platforms that have not been available until recently. Without this web technology, you could not connect with someone who uses a product in which you're interested nor would it be easy to connect with someone who shares a passion that you do? You'd have to find a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, etc. Or go to a user group. All way too hard. Now with a few Google searches and clicks, you can be connected to dozens if not hundreds of other people who can help you. Every bit of content on our site is searchable through Yahoo and Google. Every local blog, ad, business feature package, event, news brief and video clip is Googlecentric.

This is why companies all over the world are combining traditional marketing dollars with social media marketing: it will become more mainstream in the near future. As citywide newspapers lose circulation, local papers that have a focus on local issues and events are taking on a new life. We have the subscriptions, the loyalty, the stability to be more believable, more influential, and deliver a higher ROI than do traditional one-way marketing ‘non descript’ general circulation newspapers where you "push and interrupt" a brand message. Social media marketing connects people to other people who they can trust. It builds brands in an organic way and generates real revenue. This movement is accelerated by the economic downturn, where slashed marketing budgets will mean marketing teams are looking for better ways to spend their dollars.

* A site user can find a piece of content (e.g., a local news story, police report, blog post, review, event, a discussion reply) that has value to them and quickly determine who provided that content. Is the contributor an expert or a novice on the topic? What is their background on the issue? This adds context to content.

* A site user can locate a partner-business based on their descriptive information and immediately get in touch with them. A user will see photos or videos and more.

Our Association feature module optimizes the web 2.0 world for a group or organization with members or customers; they are all part of the Association site and our site. Their customers are all part of our site and their own. We want your community to stay vibrant and active over time, so we find contributors to your site. We're experienced in ways to encourage and manage user participation so you get the most value out of our on-line community.

Welcome to Web 2.0

Visit us at www.queensledger.com or www.glendaleregister.com or www.foresthillstimes.com or www.licjournal.com or www.leaderobserver.com or www.queensexaminer.com or www.greenpointstar.com or www.brooklyndtstar.com . Place a FREE classified ad, post and event, post a video, a news story, have a blog or claim your business so our users get to know you.